Dreamblood - @HeadshotTAS

Doom 64, 8 maps

Last year we had a look at Ethereal Breakdown, a full megawad from the blossoming Doom 64 mapping community that put on quite the show with its diverse cast of mappers and even more diverse ideas. Among said mappers, HeadshotTAS stood out to me for the remarkable quality of his mapping and zestful nature of his gameplay and encounter design. I remember quietly thinking, "Man, wouldn't it be cool if HeadshotTAS made a full set of maps all by himself to further flesh out his mapping ideas?" Well, at the time I couldn't have possibly known that I was wishing on a star, but I guess sometimes dreams do come true - blood-soaked dreams, as it turns out, for HeadshotTAS is here with Episode 1 of his ambitious Dreamblood project!

The first episode of Dreamblood delivers 8 maps of varying length and challenges, each following a unique theme and sporting beautiful custom skies by @Immorpher, with other assorted custom graphics working alongside a largely vanilla texture set. The very first thing that becomes noticeable is that texture usage throughout Dreamblood is remarkably fresh - a retread of Doom 64's first episode this is not. Locales include a water processing plant, a lava-soaked mining facility on Mars, and a quiet city overrun by not-so-quiet monsters They're all splashed with the vibrant colors we would expect from this game but also teeming with Doom64cute we may not necessarily expect but certainly embrace with open arms. The city's bleak landscape contrasts nicely with its lit street lamps and sector greenery, office departments are neatly laid out with computers and chairs and undead employees caught playing Doom, and don't forget to check out the local bar for the extra-strong health bonuses.

Of course, taking advantage of Doom 64's looks alone is not what HeadshotTAS is here for, and ultimately it's the usage of macro scripts coupled with the author's excellent combat design that elevate Dreamblood to greater heights. The very first level presents a new mechanic: jumping pads allow you to speedily cross rivers and gaps or reach higher floors of a building, adding a new layer to exploration. The maps are expansive but the pace is consistently brisk, with plenty of incidental combat interspersed with more challenging setpieces that take full advantage of the constantly moving geometry and scripted teleports. There is no greater example of this than the UFO encounter in map04: it appears over a small park in the starting area, torching the nearby trees and damaging the road below. A teleporter offers entry to the inside of the spacecraft itself where a large fight awaits the player: a skillsaw-lite sequence that not only feels unique but also perfectly encapsulates the creativity and dynamic nature of the level design.

Dreamblood is not just an excellent Doom 64 PWAD - it is an excellent PWAD period, one that leverages the strengths of the engine while showcasing HeadshotTAS's rock-solid level structure and combat design. It comes off as a fleshed out, complete experience, but also a kind of embryonic work, emblematic of a maturing Doom 64 mapping scene that is sure to give us more surprises in the future. Whatever the case, and whichever future awaits Dreamblood itself as Episode 2 gets into production, HeadshotTAS has honed his mapping skills and given us a sensational package. Hopefully the first of many to come..

- @Dynamo

1x1 - Various

Doom 2, MBF21-compatible, 24+ maps

Restrictions breed creativity - it's an old adage but it... wait, this sounds familiar.  This is how the write-up for last year's gold winner "The 10x10 Project" began, but this illustrates that just as mappers can challenge themselves by working within a set of constraints, so too can others be inspired by such works to craft projects of their own... and push those limitations even further.  How does one go further, in this case?  Well, divide by 10... and set a congregation of challenge demo runners at the helm, folks who tend not to back down from the extreme.

With 1x1, you probably get the idea, but here's the rundown - one texture and one flat per map, with some leniency for switches when deemed necessary.  This is one of the set's meager mercies (which itself is not always observed) as you're thrust into the uncanny and abstract; virulent voidscapes and disastrous dimensions will test your mettle, while the singular selections in your surroundings will become your only source of familiarity and comfort.  The rising challenge will gradually push you towards the breaking point, but there's a silver lining - a veritable wealth of creative and varied map design.  As with many community projects, contributors were given free rein to craft what they desired as long as it fell within the guidelines, resulting in an eclectic mix of combat set pieces, platforming and puzzles, but it all comes together beautifully and accentuates the WAD's personality.  Texture scrolling, translucency and elaborate scripted light patterns also help compensate for the lack of visual options, resulting in some impressively eye-popping arenas.

The final product shows a collective passion and a heartening example of how a simple idea, combined with some of the community's up and coming talents, can produce something more than the sum of its parts.  I look forward to seeing what the future holds for this group, while I hope that more folks will give this WAD its due, even if it's outside their comfort zone.

- @Vile

Piña Colada - @myolden et al.

Doom 2, Boom-compatible, 24 maps

One of the things I love most about Piña Colada is just how outrageous it can get. You might think that a project with a 75-monster-per-map limitation might harbor some critique on excess, but whether it's maps like "Putrid Excellence" and "Pineapple Acres" with their absurd cyberdemons, or the relatively brief "Is Pink So Base a Hue?" and "Nullspace Nexus" with a sense of grandeur that would be enviable in a long megamap, this team of authors really goes for it, using compact layouts as a canvas for a whirlwind of creativity and amped-up combat, resulting in one of the most personality-rich projects of the year.

An unmistakable part of Piña Colada's personality is its fantastic assets -- especially Muumi's animated skies, which include vibrant celestial light shows and some truly grotesque cosmic body horror. But thanks to the crew's overall strength at level design, these assets don't overshadow the maps themselves. This is established as early as the humbly scaled opener, where Myolden sculpts a very tidy deathbox wearing blue and purple highlights so that the effervescently bubbling sky of the same colors feels like a "magical realist" extension of the map itself, rather than the one point of interest.

A regular source of fun is seeing how the team, which is largely compatible in design philosophy, differs in terms of expression. One example is that LordEntropy and Peccatum's maps here are defined by architectural enormity, both authors sharing a taste for vision quests that have you flying uncontrolled above vast, scenic landscapes; but Peccatum goes about it more like a sketch artist and LordEntropy like an architect. In contrast to both, who favor more abstract architecture, Muumi is a conceptual whiz whose larger map-defining architectural features are recognizable constructs like arks or houses -- and who offers up some of the wad's best Doomcute, like the hellish corruptions of a grand piano and a bear-skin rug in "Dreaded Estate." Muumi's the sort of mapper who can drop a Gundam-sized daddy-long legs spider in the distant vantages of their map and make it look like that's an easy, natural idea to think of. 

This swirling cocktail of creative energy makes Piña Colada captivating as a purely aesthetic experience, but the energy courses just the same through the gameplay. Myolden and Death Bear establish the baseline that everyone deviates from, which reminds me a lot of early Sunlust with its spicy traps and Plutonia-like brawls that flow smoothly into each other. Then Shawny's "Heart of Snow" is the earliest example of a big swerve, flipping from the opening trio's fondness for space restriction and precarious terrain by building around a spacious winter field between tech installations, which you're given free rein to sprint across. Yet thanks to its devilishly placed turrets that sweep across the snow, this map is even more dangerous than what has come before. As the experience unfolds, the combat concepts become increasingly varied and creative, a few highlights being "Fateless" letting you choose the whole map's monster placement at the beginning; "Pineapple Acres's" sliding ice fight where spider masterminds and mancubi go zooming across a slippery winter battlefield; and "Carnage Heart's"...everything, but especially this archvile obstacle course gauntlet that afterwards recycles the viles for a later battle. The absurdity of the final third leads to many of the most thrilling, adrenaline-filled scenarios I've played all year. 

Piña Colada feels like a band of authors just having fun with it all, even as the end results show a lot of love and care. It's a wonderful showcase of how to make smaller maps excel in a way that doesn't make you miss the artistic qualities of long odysseys -- which does seem like it's increasingly becoming the story of these past two years (Overboard, Don't Turn Your Back on the City, GOODWAD, and many more). Where Piña Colada deviates from even those, though, is that its method is better suited to the madness of more informal group projects. The next time I join one, I'm definitely revisiting this set as a reference.

- @rd.

BOOMER: Beyond Vanilla - @Fernito

Doom 2, limit-removing, 6 maps

While not a new face in the world of Doom, Fernito did not yet have one magnum opus to call his own until Boomer hit the scene earlier this year. With the stated goal of creating a set of massive, non-linear and heavily interconnected maps utilizing only stock textures, such a project would be a tall order even for the most experienced of mappers; so it is a pleasure to be able to announce that Fernito has delivered in spades, creating a memorable and engrossing package that will utterly captivate adventure seekers.

The thing that will immediately strike new Boomer players is the detail found in the environments. A lot of detail. This could result in certain pitfalls, involving visual noise and confusing navigation, and the fact that Fernito has been able to completely bypass either problem is a testament to his mastery of the fine art of Doom mapping. The locations range from ruined industrial landscapes to UAC resort complexes, deep canyons and, of course, the bowels of Hell itself. The texture variety and combinations remain impeccable throughout and the resulting locations are not only a pleasure to look at, but also interesting to explore. Boomer succeeds in presenting a largely non-linear structure, with maps that can be tackled in multiple ways without having to follow a strictly linear path, provided you can power through the Demonic opposition haunting this world. And what a world it is, for Boomer goes out of its way to take care of every facet, from minuscule furniture detailing and expert Doomcute distribution, to vistas showcasing far away buildings and hills looming in the shadow. To round out the package, the rocking MIDI soundtrack perfectly captures the feel of each map, and even includes a guest MIDI by Doom legend Lee Jackson.

Pound for pound, Boomer is one of the most captivating releases of the year, one that makes me wish to spend forever more exploring its vast horizons, the distant miles of ruined territory its world so tantalizingly teases. And, with Fernito's prospective goal of overhauling Boomer with even more maps, that dream may yet be reality one day.

- @Dynamo

Insanity Edged - @Pieruskwurje

Doom 2, GZDoom, 8 maps

Pieruskwurje has mastered the art of GZDoom mapping like few others have, and provided us with a true blockbuster that ups the ante of what complex Doom mods can bring to the table while also offering accessible, immediate gameplay that reminds us why we fell in love with this game in the first place.

Far from being just a collection of maps, Insanity Edged opts for a story-driven approach, diving into elements seldom seen in the ever-elusive category of Doom writing. The plot is presented with cinematic brillance, keeping the player immersed within the story while never slowing the action down.

The story calls to duty ex-UAC operative, Jacob Rowland. After being discharged from the UAC the previous year, he is sent to the Insanity’s Edge Mining Complex to retrieve a recently discovered stockpile of FIREBLU Hellfire Fuel, before a UAC squadron can do the same. Knowing the UAC, they can only have one reason as for why they’d want it. Promised a hefty price, Jacob heads into the complex where, very soon, all Hell will break loose.

Insanity Edged presents itself as a sequel to the author's previous work, Winter's Fury, down to the story being a direct continuation of it. And with the author releasing a remaster of Winter's Fury earlier in the year, there is no better time to get acquainted with it if you haven't already.

Regardless, with Insanity Edged releasing eight years after Winter's Fury, Pieruskwurje is not showing any signs of mapping rust, and instead constantly wows the player on the presentation front. While Winter's Fury is all about cold and grayscale levels, Insanity Edged is marvelously colorful. There is not a dull landscape in sight in the incredible setting Pieruskwurje provides us – from imposing multi-layered surfaces and entrances that can only be achieved by portal trickery, to intricately designed layouts that are both confusing and jaw-dropping, into some of the most beautiful vistas I have ever seen done in this engine.

But the visual front is not the only area Insanity Edged seeks to impress in. Joining the fray are a set of brand new weapons courtesy of Scuba Steve and Cardboard Marty, which add flair to the standard, classic guns. The levels themselves are extremely action-packed and can each take well over 45 minutes to complete, and even beyond that if you decide to go secret hunting. The original bestiary sees the addition of a handful of new enemies, as well as a couple of unique and bespoke bosses, one of which has a mechanic that I personally have never seen implemented in the game. All of this is accompanied by a high-fidelity soundtrack that perfectly matches each and every level, boss fight, or cutscene.

Throughout the journey you will also find yourself thrown into interlude maps that toy with your psyche, making you lose all sense of reality before being snapped back into the mission. Last but not least, the levels each have hidden logs that reward secret hunters with extra lore, and this can even result in a possible alternate ending if you find them all. Even if you missed them at the beginning, it adds to the mapset’s replay value.

Insanity Edged has left me wanting so much more of it. Though the levels were by no means short, it felt like I couldn't get enough. It has such a unique taste and the experience was so immersive, it left me wondering just what else this world could have in store for us. And thankfully, Pieruskwurje has promised that there is more to this story, and I can only hope that we won’t have to wait another eight years for the next part. But hey, you can’t rush perfection.

- @Terminus

El Viaje de Diciembre - @Cacodemon187

Doom 2, vanilla-compatible, 6 maps

El Viaje's aesthetic appeal was pretty obvious from the beginning, notes of Lost Civilization, TNT, and '90s gems like Earth.wad, in a sepia-toned world that felt like a reminiscence -- but the well roundedness of its appeal really hit me in the second map, when I stumbled into a secret backdoor tunnel right at the beginning and did a large swathe of the map obviously in reverse, looting a balcony full of ammo but getting a fun, dangerous fight with no immediate escape for my trouble. Then the third map, before I had any serious weapons, allowed me to find a secret passage into one of the level's major warehouse complexes, flanking me with ledge enemies from all angles as a single archvile with demon guardians harried me on the ground, an SSG teasing me but in a dead zone far away from potential cover. All of this compelled enthusiastic replays, and even with the initial surprises gone, the kinetic game feel held up, and the lovely bittersweet mood was still there of course, much the same. 

Cacodemon187 has a gift for imparting a sense of history -- and in this case, even culture -- to domestic settings, to all the rundown abodes and agrarian facilities that you explore on your round-trip journey. This shows in El Viaje's strong undercurrents of loss and of people left behind, and in the way dutiful attention to influences, which here include the Spanish mapping scene, shapes the design of his maps. El Viaje has no shortage of pretty postcard-like vistas of maps' surrounding cliffsides and beaches and building facades, which are suffused with a melancholy dusty atmosphere that feels like the world after environmental calamity -- the Earth.wad sky now tinged with an ever-present brown haze, as the familiar surf still rolls in. The depicted worlds are dingy and in tatters, and they abstain from vibrant colors, and Cacodemon187 shows how that is not an impediment to something being undeniably gorgeous.

- @rd.